


but this

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Philosophy, sex, death. Written in August 2005.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but this

He is a scientist -his fingers are trace-stained with the ancient history of ink and equations, of teen years bent over a dusty book in the darkest corner of the room, everybody else living their lives around him, away from him, and Roy moving his lips to the words he could not comprehend yet, his little litany. He is a scientist, what other people call _magic_ he calls _math_, and he believes in his numbers.

(_this_ has taught him otherwise: of the miracle of the invisible, the possible and yet so improbable -_i don´t believe in miracles_, he tells Hawkeye, _but here you are_, just to see her smile-, how all his numbers are wrong, he counts the number of her vertebrae when she bends to kiss him and it doesn´t make sense, we need to invent a new code and i hate to say this, dear, but you are ruining all my equations, you are the _x_ and the _y_, the question and its solution, you sleep with your shoulder resting on my stomach, your face burrowing into the hollow of my neck, filling the hollowness of me, you unwrite the books i have not read)

He believes in science -the hard, reliable science that kept him alive and made him a killer. He believed there was nothing more than blood and flesh and electricity to the human being. He knows it better than most, he has killed, after all.

(then what is _this_? he wonders, head up her breasts, pressed to her skin to find out exactly _what_, underneath, what is this wild animal that bats its wings like and echo of my own beat, beat, beating, the flash of your heart a buried insect, he puts his hands to his chest and he finds her breathing there instead)

She is no scientist; but she believes in the earth and the soil, the things that grow and the things that never change. What you can see is all there is.

(_there has to be something more_, she argues, lifting one arm up, throwing one arm back, under her head, her foot twisted around his ankle.

_like what_?

_you are always saying human transmutation is impossible, i think that´s proof there´s more than just flesh and blood_. she tilts her head a bit on the pillow; she sees one of her boots leaning carelessly against a chair, it touches the sleeve of his blue uniform coat, carelessly draped over the arm of the chair. she thinks that´s love.

_don´t go philosophical on me, first lieutenant_, he says in a tone half-patronizing half-amused, the rank merely as undercurrent to his desire. _specially not in bed_.

_why, sir? because i don´t read thick books like you?_

_no_, holding her wrist against the head of the bed, pushing her knee with his free hand, _because no matter how good my argument is you are the one who gives me sex therefore you´ll always always win_.

just to make her laugh. and she does, under his mouth, ribcage against ribcage and caging them inside the other, palm against palm, your line of destiny reads my line of life, we were lovers in a past life -even if he doesn´t believe in past lives- but we forgot so i could fall in love with you again. i know the history of your backbone, the path waydown your navel, the softness of your thighs; I wrote it.

he comes up for air and words, now barely nouns and adjetives and verbs muted into kisses.

_what more could there be?_ he asks, tracing the line of her collar-bone, flesh and bone and blood.

_what more?_ she repeats, eyes gleaming in anticipation

_this_, he answers, looking down at his own fingers tangled in her hair)

She has learned that the human body is fragile and constant, she´s learned through torn flesh and spilled blood, broken bones. She knows it better than most, she has killed.

-he still resents the safe distance her rifle offers, how she never gets to smell the burnt skin-

She believed in what she could see, she believed selflessness never went further than those you care about. Until she met a boy who burnt all her bridges and had the world in his eyes, under a sandstorm-swirled sky.

He believes in science.

She believes in what she can see.

They prove each other wrong everyday.


End file.
